


A Final Time for Everything.

by GillO



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 13:17:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3852322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GillO/pseuds/GillO
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Times Buffy died. All of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Final Time for Everything.

The first time she died he wasn’t there, hadn’t even heard of Sunnyhell. He was in Prague, rescuing another daft, beloved bint from a raving crowd, and Slayers were a fond memory of past mayhem.

The second time she died it near enough broke him. He collapsed in on himself at the sight of her body broken on the ground and, though he kept going for the sake of the bitty one and because of his promise, he was a shell of the thing he had been. His body hurt, but the dead heart hurt more, and all that summer he was like an automaton, like a bloody robot, keeping what was left of the vow because he had made it to her.

The third time she died he was on his way out of town on a bike, off to get the one thing he could get that she might accept, not even aware she’d been shot, let alone that she was flatlining. She told him later this time didn't count, but it bloody did, and yet again he was useless when it mattered.

The fourth time was the last time. They had been together decades by then, squabbling and fighting each other and every passing demon, beating hell out of enemies, working as a team, bringing up children and baby slayers alike. It took a long time for her to age, Slayer healing and all, but she did, inexorably, get older and frailer. When the end had to be stared at, he knew what he had to do. He held her hand in the hospital, travelled with her in the ambulances so she could have her final looks at the mountains, the desert, the sea. He stayed beside her at night, lying on the floor when the pain was too much for her to let him share the narrow hospital bed, and sat beside her every day until the days ran out.

He’d pushed her wheelchair down the boardwalk and carried her onto the beach and soothed her by stroking her and telling her it was OK to go and he loved her and always would, but avoided making any promises at all.

And when she’d gone he sat by her all night, and then, as the first streaks of dawn marked the sky in the east, lay down beside her and waited for the light.

**Author's Note:**

> An extended version of a ficlet written for the Halloween Challenge at .


End file.
